A Curious Feeling is the debut solo album from Genesis founder member and keyboard player Tony Banks. This classic album, inspired by the novel “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes, was first released in October 1979 by Charisma Records. Recorded at Polar Studios in Stockholm, whilst Genesis were on a brief hiatus following the And Then There Were Three tour, this majestic work featured contributions from drummer Chester Thompson (a member of Genesis for concert appearances) and vocalist Kim Beacon. Stylistically the album is equal to anything Banks composed for Genesis and includes the instrumental ‘The Waters of Lethe’ and the song ‘For a While’ (also released as a single) among its highlights. Significantly, this new edition of A Curious Feeling has been remixed from the original master tapes by Nick Davis (who also remixed the entire Genesis catalogue in 2007) and Tony Banks, resulting in a more dynamic sounding album.

Tony Banks’ first solo album borrowed faint elements of Genesis’ early progressive sound, making his debut release the strongest in his catalog. Solid keyboard movements lend themselves to mystic, fantasy-like excursions found in tracks such as “From the Undertow,” “Somebody Else’s Dream,” and “The Waters of Lethe,” one of the album’s strongest cuts. Banks manages to capture the wonderment and allure that enveloped Genesis’ Peter Gabriel days in a number of his tracks, yet he filters out the instrumental intricacies, unorthodox time signatures, and complex poetry which enveloped these works to create a milder but equally effective progressive realm, thus generating a fair amount of musical distinction across the album. Banks has refreshingly disposed of any coagulated instrumental pretentiousness that one might have thought would be present, as cuts like “For a While,” “In the Dark,” and the title track verge on a new age sort of keyboard/guitar beguilement. Vocalist Kim Beacon, who has worked with the Walkie Talkies, String Driven Thing, and Thin Lizzy, is quite significant throughout, as is the atmospheric percussion work of Chester Thompson. Later efforts from Banks began to show a drift toward commercial pop, much like Genesis’ material, making A Curious Feeling and, to a lesser extent, 1983’s The Fugitive his most compelling work.